


Needle In the Hay

by moreculturelesspop



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Always Female Dean Winchester, Childbirth, Couch Cuddles, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Female Dean Winchester, Fluff, Male Castiel/Female Dean Winchester, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Sam Winchester Knows, Unplanned Pregnancy, labor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:55:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25168078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreculturelesspop/pseuds/moreculturelesspop
Summary: “She doesn’t believe in herself and it makes me so angry. She is the Righteous Woman. She has saved the world and the people in it, time and time again, made their lives so much safer,” he looks down and blushes slightly, “She is an incredibly loving woman, she would make a fantastic mother. I am not sad she doesn’t believe in herself, it is her body and her choice of course, but I am sad she thinks she will not make a good mother.”Cas isn’t upset she doesn’t want the baby, he knows she does want it but doesn’t feel like she deserves it. Deanna was stupidly making a decision because she felt guilty. Again.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 91





	Needle In the Hay

Sam has known for a long time that Cas was in love with his sister. She was smart and funny, loyal and stubborn, and he couldn’t blame him. What shocked him was that she reciprocated those sentiments back towards the angel. At first, he thinks she is flirting as an automatic response, it had become a survival instinct for her. Then he thinks they’re using each other for sex, another layer of Deanna’s nihilism. But Cas makes Deanna express things he never thought he’d see from his older sister, she mourns and grieves, she cries and fights for him. Sam wonders if she would fight and grieve the same way for him when his time comes.

He remembers, many years ago, catching the pair kissing in the bunker hall. She thinks he’s asleep, having left them researching the Knights of Hell in the library. He can’t sleep, so figures he’ll join them and be productive with his insomnia. Instead, he finds his sister leaned up against the bunker wall, Cas pushed against her, her arms around his neck and their lips joined. He quickly backs away and leaves them to have privacy. He swears he sometimes hears sex noises coming from Deanna’s bedroom, yet there is never a trace that someone else has been in the morning. Deanna is a woman with needs, it’s safer for her to get her kicks with Cas rather than some poor Lebanon native. He knows Cas will look after her, he’s just concerned that she’s leading him on. If he wasn’t so terrified of his sister he would probably talk to her about.

Then he catches them in the act. He can’t sleep, a neck injury causing him pain. He takes some painkillers and goes to the TV room to see if Cas is milling around. The TV set is on but the sound is low. It looks like the room is empty, he gingerly walks to turn the set off. The room wasn’t empty. Curled up on the sofa was Cas and Deanna, both naked and spooning. Cas was curled up naked behind her, heavy-lidded and obviously inside her. Her butt is pushed flat against him, chest rising visibly, her head turned to look at him.

“Is this okay?” Cas whispers. She looks up at him with long eyelashes and remnants of yesterday’s smoky eye and kisses him. They don’t notice him, too entwined and lost in each other. He’s seen his sister have sex before, heard her getting pounded in the bathroom stall as he peed, woken up in the night to fumbling from the motel bed next to him, but he had never her seen her be intimate. He backs away quietly, reminding himself to never sit on that sofa again.

The second time Jack catches them first. They were both out on what he presumed to be separate missions, one for food, one on angel-related duties. Jack runs into the kitchen in a panic.

“Castiel and Deanna are in pain, I heard noises, I think one must be hurt!” he cries. Sam runs up to the garage to see the pair in the front bench of the Impala. Cas’ head is tipped back against the seat and Deanna is on his lap, her head thrown back. He can see why Jack would mistake the ecstasy on their face for pain, the parted lips, the closed eyes. He can hear the moans through the car doors, the squeak of the seat under the gentle movements.

“I’ll get Cas to talk to you about the birds and the bees, when he’s less, um, preoccupied.”

“Castiel frequently talks to me about the bees, he is very fond of them.”

Sam waits for the right time to bring it up, warn Deanna that she was playing with fire and it was going to end badly. But then Cas leaves and his sister is broken, truly heartbroken. He had never seen her as the wallow with ice cream type. After Cas died, she reverted back to nihilism, into drinking until she blacked out, into making death wishes a hobby. He knew how to handle that Deanna, it was almost a yearly tradition. Now she was eating ice cream and watching CW shows, refusing to leave her room for days on end.

They find their way back to each other because they always do. That’s when he knows that when the world finally ends, one apocalypse too many, it will be Dee and Cas, holding hands as the ship goes down. He’s scared he will never love anyone the way they love each other, he could never look at Eileen with the same passion as Cas. Would never be so tender and patient, so understanding and loyal to anyone as much as Dee was with the angel. Human or angel, possessed or marked, their love was pure. He’s just mad his sister spent so long ignoring Cas’ affections in favor of one-night stands with pretty yet shallow men.

“I love you!” he hears her scream across her room one day, the door not quite closed. “I fucking love you. I always have! Happy? You can’t leave because I love you!” Sam smiles on his way to his room. The funny thing is that nothing really changes after that confession. They still glance at each other, she still laughs at him and he still rolls his eyes at her, they bicker and they stare longingly, like they had for a decade. Sam can’t help but feel smug that he had known long before they had, that there was more than just a celestial profound bond between the pair.

He’s just finished a late-night research session in the library when he takes a tour through the kitchen to grab a bottle cold water before going to bed. He hears giggling as he closes the door, he suddenly recognizes the smell of sweat and sex. He sees the trench coat folded over the bench, the plaid shirt pooled on the floor. He follows the discarded clothing until he finds the couple sat on the floor against the kitchen counter.

“Hello, Sam,” Cas says, like he wasn’t wearing nothing but his disheveled shirt and his penis wasn’t standing to attention between the white cotton. Deanna is totally naked, curled up into his side, giggling into his shoulder. She’s curled herself up so tightly he can only see long tanned longs and wavy golden hair.

“We eat in here,” he tells her, crossing his arms.

“He certainly does,” she giggles into the crook of Cas’ neck. Cas looks proud of himself, looking up at Sam with sparkling blue eyes. He walks away, wondering if there was a surface in the bunker that hadn’t been tainted.

He tries not to feel bad when he and Eileen do it missionary style, he wonders if she wants to be bent over household surfaces or fucked on the kitchen floor. He hopes Deanna and Eileen don’t talk over wine about sex like women in the movies do. Deanna had always been very proud of her sexuality and her love of sex. Dad had called her a slut until she used her pert breasts and small waist to hustle in bars and get information. She was unashamed in how much she loved sex, loved naked bodies, loved getting off. She watched porn, brought skin mags, took her dildo in motel showers. The more society told her to be subservient and private about her sex life, the more she spoke about it. In some ways he was proud of her, in most ways she was his sister and her obsessive porn watching was frankly traumatizing. He has lost count at the times he has flirted with a waitress only to hear Deanna has gone down on her in the kitchen after closing time.

When she and Cas weren’t ruining every surface of the bunker (he knows that stain in the archive room was their fault) they were arguing. They had always bickered, it used to be a way for the pair to release their sexual tension. Lately, the arguments were unbearable. They would spend all night locked in their room screaming before one would storm out. Deanna would take the Impala and come back just before dawn, usually with something thrown across the war room on the way out. He finds Cas wiping away tears in the TV room, where he had accustomed to resting in. The bunker became a war zone of dirty looks, snide comments and broken glass.

It’s not just Cas who is upset by the situation, Deanna barely leaves her room. She has no appetite, especially for her beloved bacon breakfast and black rings have almost become embedded under her eyes. He even catches her crying as she cleaned her guns in the morning, as he left for his morning run. Whatever they were arguing about, it was making his sister sick.

He does the one thing he knows what to do with his sister when she’s in this mood, he takes her out drinking. He leaves Eileen with Cas, hoping that she would be able to drag an answer from him. Deanna doesn’t seem in the mood for conversation, staring down at the neck of the bottle and peeling away the label. Normally she’d be four shots deep by now.

“You okay?” he asks nervously. “I’m here if you want to talk about it, you know that?”

“I’m peachy,” she murmurs. Most people in Lebanon recognize her and know not to approach her whilst she drank. Every now and then a drunken creep from out of town decides to try his luck. He sways up to her on the barstool, he murmurs something incoherent about putting his face between her thighs. He gets one warning as a courtesy. Instead of backing away, he decides to enter her personal space and gets a punch in the face for his troubles. He staggers back, dazzled, while she barely moves from her stool. He then grabs her by the throat, causing her to laugh manically and spit in his face.

Men like that are never alone, three others appear and she essentially starts a bar fight. She gives as good as she gets, grinning with a bloody mouth as she punches, kicks and bites. She was enjoying it, a new way of relieving the tension. “Right, fun’s over,” he says, dragging her out by the elbow. She has to stop to throw up by the side of the road before getting into the Impala.

He doesn’t realise she’s sprained her ankle until after she drives them home. He expects Cas to start fussing over Deanna when he helps her down the stairs to the bunker. Instead, he looks at her in disgust.

“Someone started a bar fight,” he jokes to Cas.

“You were in a bar?” he asks with a stone-cold face. He looks at her in disdain before turning on his heels and marching away.

“Sit down,” Sam tells her, helping her to a seat in the war room. “Elevate it, I’ll get some ice.” She winces as she lifts her right foot onto the table. She’s kicked her heeled boots off by the time he comes back. “You and Cas doing okay?” She just shrugs, wrapping the ice pack around her swollen ankle. “You can’t still keep up this ‘he’s like a brother to me’ bullshit.”

“Not sure there is a Cas and me,” she murmurs, running her fingers through her hair. “You know I can’t talk about this shit.” There would always be a Cas and Deanna, no matter the timeline, the universe, the state of matter, heaven or hell, apocalypse or not.

“What did you do?” Was there someone else? Was he right to worry that Deanna would use Cas and break his heart? Did she regret her declaration of love? Had she taken on another stupid life-changing curse?

“What did I do?” she snorts. She traces patterns into the plaid on her belly. “Of course, what did I do? I got knocked up,” she laughs and it’s a horrible bitter sound that is too close to sobs. “Totally my fault and no one else’s,” she quietly adds.

“You’re pregnant?” he can feel his eyebrows raising.

“Surprise!”

“Who’s the father?” It wouldn’t be Cas, he would be running around singing songs and announcing the news from the rooftops. He wouldn’t be crying in front of the TV if the baby was his.

“You think I’m that much of a slut?” He hadn’t, but she had never been one for committed relationships and monogamy. “Cas is the only person, has been the only one for a while.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t want it. He does,” She’s still tracing patterns into her flat belly, sending messages to the small life growing in there. Sam doesn’t know what to say, he never expected any of these words to leave his sister’s mouth. “I’m tired, I’m going to bed.” She hobbles to bed, holding the ice pack in her left hand. There were clearly a lot of gaps in the story, Cas wouldn’t hate Deanna for making a choice, Deanna had made a string of stupid choices over the last decade that Cas had seemingly supported because he thought the sun shone out of his sister’s ass.

Sam finds Cas in the TV room, Golden Girls reruns in the background. He looks worn out, his coat drench over the back of the sofa he is sat on. Sam sits next to him, trying not to remember the tender lovemaking he had witnessed on it.

“Is it okay if I sit?”

“This is your home, I am merely a guest.”

“No, this is your home, Cas.” No matter what his sister screams at him.

“I apologize for the arguments lately. I understand it is not a pleasant atmosphere to live in. I don’t believe it will carry on much longer and I will be gone soon.”

“Dee told me,” he says gently. “About the baby. You need to understand something about my sister. She raised me, she fed and bathed me, made sure I had everything I needed, made sure I was safe. Everything that has happened to me, Bobby, Jo, Ellen, you, Claire, Dad, even Mom, she blames on herself. The weight of being a mother, the guilt of anything happening would be too much for her.”

“She doesn’t believe in herself and it makes me so angry. She is the Righteous Woman. She has saved the world and the people in it, time and time again, made their lives so much safer,” he looks down and blushes slightly, “She is an incredibly loving woman, she would make a fantastic mother. I am not sad that she doesn't want to keep the child, it is her body and her choice of course, but I am sad she thinks she will not make a good mother.” Cas isn’t upset she doesn’t want the baby, he knows she does want it but doesn’t feel like she deserves it. Deanna was stupidly making a decision because she was so guilty. Again.

Her behavior makes so much more sense once he realizes she’s pregnant. Her grouchiness, her lack of appetite, her tiredness. She had spent the morning throwing up and Eileen was suspecting something. Sam doesn’t tell her, that was up to Deanna.

“Drink it,” Cas groans, pushing the peppermint tea towards her.

“You drink it,” she growls. She still drinks the tea, but not without lovingly staring at his coffee.

Sam manages to find himself stuck listening to one of their awkward conversation, but after it, he knew his sister would be okay. He was in the kitchen late at night, remembering that the dishes hadn’t been washed yet, both he and Eileen diving out of dinner quickly when Cas and Deanna start arguing about her poor diet. He has forgotten to check behind the kitchen counter when he starts washing up because he can suddenly hear voices. He immediately stops.

“No Cas, none of this is about you,” she hushes.

“I know I am a powerless human, I know I have caused you pain over the years, done many things I regret, I understand you have not forgiven me for many of those things. I just want you to make sure it’s the right choice for you, that you will not feel guilty about it. If you want me to go, I will.”

“Cas, the fact it’s yours is the reason I want this baby,” she tells him, her voice quivering. “You are,” her voice cracks. “Need you.” He wonders if she’s ever told him she loved him without it being shouted in anger across a room. He can’t remember her ever saying it without someone being at death’s door.

“I want to have a child with you,” he murmurs. Sam has to wash the dishes slowly to stay as quiet as he can. Any sudden movements may force her to close up, and Cas needed to hear this. He wishes he could get an ounce of this sincerity with his sister. “I love you Deanna Winchester.”

“One day I will go for a hunt and not come back. Then what will you do?”

“Deanna, I am not John Winchester and you are not Mary.” That line hurt, paralyzingly so. She was scared that Cas would become the revenge crazed John Winchester, she would rather abort her child than put that onto him. The water has become cold, but Sam can’t bring himself to walk out and make his presence known. He can hear kissing and Cas’ comforting hushes.

“You really want a baby with me?” she asks, shyly.

“I want everything with you.” Sam melts, those dumbasses were so romantic. He had literally witnessed the greatest love story ever told, but neither of the participants knew about it.

*

When he gets up for breakfast the next day, Deanna and Cas are already arguing.

“I can have some coffee,” she snaps.

“Get into the habit of having none.”

“Fine, I’m going back to bed,” she says, slamming her empty mug on the table.

“Morning Sam,” Cas sighs, drinking his own coffee. “I am sorry you have to hear so many of our arguments, she is very emotional right now, some of it down to the pregnancy hormones and some it is, well, you know, your sister’s temperament.” The pair sit down together and drink their coffee in peace.

“How far along is she?”

“Around six weeks, not that she will go to the doctors for the appropriate check-ups.”

“Is it a Nephilim, because you are, you know?” He had just presumed that he would never have to write a speech for his sister’s wedding, never become an uncle or help her buy her first home. When he first met the angel, he never thought over a decade later he’d be asking about him fathering his nephew or niece.

“I don’t believe so, I am human now. I understand your concern but I won’t let anything happen to Deanna, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I am sorry for the conversation you heard last night. It must be upsetting to hear your sister like that, I know it pains me.”

“Cas,” he laughs. He’s glad it’s him that she has finally settled with, “Honestly, Cas, you guys are perfect for each other, she will never find anyone who loves her more.” Cas smiles at him gratefully. Eileen and Deanna appear together. Eileen grabs a coffee and sits down next to Sam, Deanna leans over Cas with her arms around his neck. She is uncharacteristically affectionate with him, nuzzling into his neck, before stealing a sip of his coffee.

“Have you just vomited?” Cas asks her.

“Sick, pee, blood. Got it all going on over here. Might just set up camp in the bathroom.”

The couple are pretty affectionate and stop fighting, until she wants to go on a hunt. Sam and Eileen had mainly been going out by themselves, their own unique form of getting to know each other. Deanna is bored and demands to go out on the case.

“You know you can’t go.”

“The kid will be fine it’s little, right? Like a gooseberry, right? It won’t notice.” She stuffs her weapons into her duffel bag.

“A raspberry,” he corrects, crossing his arms. “Sam, you can’t let her go.”

He wasn’t going to fight with her when her emotions were this heightened. It was a pretty simple haunting, would likely be uneventful, and he knew she was going stir crazy sat on the sofa all day. He regrets not fighting her, she has barely driven out of Lebanon when she has to stop the car to throw up. The smell of salt makes her gag, and she complains of cramps on the drive home. Her instincts are off, her balance wobbly and the wrong senses heightened.

Cas isn’t angry with her, he just holds her and lets her cry out any anxieties the hunt may have brought out. He can’t get over how cute they are together, how perfectly balanced and understanding they are. She lets him tell her about the baby’s growing process (it can swallow, it has working joints, it has taste buds). She doesn’t take the information in, still unsure about this foreign body that had forced her out of her favorite jeans.

He overhears them talking in the archives about it. “You have to accept the fact you’re pregnant. You can’t ignore it anymore.”

“I think you’ll find I can,” she snorts. “Look, something is going to happen soon so don’t get too attached.”

“I remember you saying something like that about me once.”

“I’m too old for this, too broken, too fucked up.”

“I built this body,” he says, rubbing his hand across her belly, through the plaid. “It’s not broken, it’s perfect.” Sam walks out because he’s fairly sure they are about to have sex.

*

Cas disappears for a few days after that to follow a lead, leaving Deanna to lie on the sofa and trace patterns in the swell of her tiny bump. He saw more of Mom in his sister now, with her soft face and warm eyes.

“Did you steal hospital equipment?” she asks him after he appears with a doppler machine. He gives her a wordless answer and she smiles. “I have never loved you more.”

“The at-home ones are often faulty.” He makes her lie on the sofa, shirt lifted as he applies some gel to her lower belly. His brow furrows as he tries to find the right noise through all the wooshes. He finally stops, just under the belly button, and the sound of a quick pulse fills the TV room. She sits up in shock, before Cas holds her shoulder and indicates she should lie down.

“Is that our?” she asks, voice cracking.

“Our baby, yes.” He sees a little smile appear on her face.

“Sammy,” she says, before bursting into tears. He was going to be an uncle, judging by the look on her face this baby was going nowhere.

*

Sam has never felt more guilty in his life than the day he has to call Cas and tell him Deanna is in the hospital. The hunt couldn’t have gone much worse, turned out what they thought were vamps were actually demons. Demons who now knew his sister was pregnant.

“How cute, Deanna Winchester and angel Castiel playing house,” he smirks at her. “You really think you’re going to be a good mother? Really think that the kid won’t end up dead like everything else touched by the Winchester’s?” Suddenly his sister, off guard, was thrown against the wall. She doesn’t jump back up like she normally would, and Sam’s sure something has gone wrong. She lays on her side, motionless until he shakes her. He wishes he could tell the nurses the whole story, instead, he tells her she tripped down the steps and fell.

Sam waits outside whilst they hook her up to wires. He hears Cas thundering down the hospital hallway, trench coat flapping out behind him like his long-gone wings.

“She’s being monitored, I am so sorry.” He can’t make eye contact, he can only guess the look of anger and disgust pooling in those blue eyes. Cas disappears inside the room and Sam waits outside until a nurse takes pity on him.

“Come on in, puppy dog,” she tells him.

The hospital room is quiet except for the tiny beeps of his nephew or niece’s heartbeat. “Is everything okay?” Deanna is hooked up to machines, her shirt lifted to reveal a surprisingly pregnant looking stomach. Under all the baggy layers of clothing was a quickly growing belly. Cas is at her side, holding onto her hand and looking intently at the screen.

“Babies are stronger than they look,” the nurse says. “We’re going to keep her in for a while, just to check. It’s precaution, babies are tucked up nice and safe in there. She just needs to be careful on staircases from now.”

If Sam could go back in time he would, tell her to stay behind, he would. Cas won’t let her out of his sight now, making Sam run out and buy all her weird food cravings. He will never say no, guilt-ridden by her hospital trip. He makes her Dorito sandwiches, helps Cas baby proof the bunker, and lets Deanna be as grumpy as she wants.

Mostly she just wants time with Cas. She seemed to have discovered a new level of intimacy with him. They would spend nearly all day entwined on the sofa, watching TV and talking through baby names, birthing techniques and shopping lists. Cas had brought and read every book on the market, some Sam had also read, skimming all the things he never wanted to know about his sister. Cas would leave out books with folded corners, highlighted sections and bookmarks for her to read. He often found her asleep in her cave with the book over her chest. Mostly it’s cute, Deanna with her shirt up watching belly kicks, and Cas pressing kissing to the swell and telling stories in Enochian.

He falls asleep into a book about Nephilims, just in case, and wakes up to shouting. At first, he thinks she’s in pain but he soon realizes it’s a domestic dispute.

“Stop looking at me like I’m some apple pie wife. Like I’m going to have dinner on the table and iron your shirts.”

“I do not,” he sighs.

“You’re being too protective. I’m pregnant, not dying,” she screams. “Fuck me then, fuck me right here then.” He can hear the tears in her voice. “Because there’s no way I’m getting my hand around this fucking bump to get myself off.” It goes silent and Sam has to intervene. He wishes it wasn’t about this topic, but his brotherly instincts were kicking in. He could count on his fingers how many times he has seen her cry before the pregnancy. He associated her tears with catastrophe.

They’re in the corner of the study, her head buried in his shoulder. “I fell in love with you, your courage, your brains, your stubbornness, your heart,” he hears sniffles into his t-shirt. “I will love you no matter what you look like. You are not fat and unattractive, you are pregnant,” It was so odd to see him dressed down in pajamas and bare feet, sometimes in Dean’s horrible dead man’s dressing gown. “Sam, I am sorry if we woke you.”

“You doing okay?” he asks, stifling back a yawn.

“Cas wouldn’t fuck me,” she tells her, her voice muffled by her shirt. He quickly backs away, and he barely reaches his room before he can hear them having sex. “I look like a whale at this angle!”

*

“You back?” he asks. Deanna is sat with her legs over the side of the chair and Cas is French braiding her hair.

“I hope you like yellow because everything Cas picked out is yellow with a bloody bee on it.”

“Where did you learn that?” Sam asks, pointing at the impressive plait Cas was creating in his sister’s thick golden hair.

“Jimmy did it to Claire as a child, he rather enjoyed it.”

“Maybe he could do it on you later,” she says. “He’s very good with his fingers.”

“What you reading?” he asks, ignoring her previous comment.

“I have just learned what a mucus plug is.”

“Hairband.” She holds her arm up, not looking up from her book, allowing him to slide it off her wrist and use it to fix his work. She winces as she moves, struggling to get comfortable in the seat.

“Round ligament pain is a bitch,” she adds. It’s hard to recognize it as his big sister, wearing her baggy shirt over her stretched stomach, rubbing circles on the plaid.

*

He doesn’t think he’s ever woken up to find his sister awake before him. He got up at 6 to find she was already in the kitchen, shoveling ice cream into her mouth. She turns around and tries to hide the tub when she hears footsteps. “Fuck, thought you were Cas.”

“Why are you up?” He gets a bottle of water from the fridge.

“She won’t settle down, can’t work out if she wants to kick my ribs or headbutt my bladder. I’m so hungry all the time.”

“You’ve always been permanently hungry,” he laughs, sitting down next to her.

“You know it’s in their natural instinct to start kicking when their mother is sleeping? Pricks,” She rubs her belly in circular motions, a loving gesture from his usually unemotional sister. “You wanna see if you can calm her? Kids always like you better.” Not true at all, kids loved Deanna, and she loved kids. He often thought, as she cuddled traumatized kids on cases, that it would be a waste for her to never become a mother. She grabs his hand and places it above her belly button, he feels little but strong kicks against the palm of his hand.

“You said her?”

“Fuck. Not supposed to say, since you know gender is bullshit. Her dad loves butterflies, her mother loves guns and whiskey.” She shoves more ice cream into her mouth.

“You’re having a girl,” he says with a smile.

“It’s terrifying, what do I know about little girls? I can barely function as a woman myself. I don’t know about prom dresses and dating, braiding hair and skipping games.”

“Maybe she won’t like those things? Maybe she’ll wear cargo pants and like cars.” He has the image of Deanna holding up her daughter, with freckled skin and big blue eyes, and teaching her all about the inner workings of the Impala.

“You better not tell Cas you saw me eating this, he’ll murder me. If I eat one more raisin, I swear to,” she growls.

*

They get to putting together a nursery. Deanna and Sam end up putting all the furniture together because Cas has to methodically read through every damn manual, even stopping to spell correct one of them. His sister is, frankly, huge. She still has two months to go but her belly is large and swollen, from behind it’s Deanna, but from the side he can barely recognize his sister. She was always so lithe, her body a weapon, but her round face smiled more, her curves fitted around Cas as she napped on the sofa in his arms.

She drops down quickly to the floor and just about lands on the bottom step of the ladder. She grunts a bit and rubs at her belly. Sam quickly runs and grabs Cas from the kitchen where he had been banished to. It’s a false alarm, but he insists she has to lie down, keep hydrated and leave the power tools alone.

She leaves him and Eileen to the power tools and decorating, Eileen was a dab hand with a paintbrush, and decides to take up shooting instead. Aside from her time with Lisa and Ben, she had never been away from hunting for so long. She had nothing to take her anger out on, except Cas and the contestants on Jeopardy, so she was relieved to find solace in the gun range. Even in her mans XXL shirt and waddling stance, she could aim to kill.

“You’ll look after her if anything happens?” she casually asks. “And Cas?”

“Nothing is going to happen.” Bang. She shoots the target between the eyes.

“Good things don’t happen to people like me,” she says. “Joanna, Jo, just say you’ll look after her.”

“Of course I will. Nothing will go wrong.”

“An ex-angel, and an ageing hunting whose been possessed and died more times than she can count, what could do wrong?” Bang.

Jody rings him and says she has had the same conversation with her, seemed like she made the trip to hers especially. Sam is starting to wonder if she knew something they didn’t, or this was just Deanna’s belief that nothing good ever happened to her.

“She’s found the most loving and patient man on the planet,” Jody tells him. She also reveals that she would be attending the birth, offering support and generally being yelled at by his sister. He wishes her luck, but he knows he’ll also be there holding her hand.

*

He starts to panic every time she knocks over a drink, winces as she gets up and rubs her belly as she watches TV. He especially panics at her tears, Deanna only ever cried if someone was dead or when she missed her mother, she had never cried at tv shows and songs before. He often found her head buried in Cas’ chest sobbing into his shirt over the death of an animal in a cartoon, over an expensive car crashing in an action movie, and especially at reality show sobs stories. “Stop making your mommy cry,” Cas whispers into her stomach. No amount of research would prepare him for all the aches and pains she was going through. Cas takes it all in his stride. In fact, he had admitted to liking this new version of Dee, who liked public displays of affection, who always wanted to cuddle and spoke openly about her feelings.

She gets up with a struggle, murmuring about peeing again.

“What are you wearing?” he snorts. She was wearing a flowy floral dress that showed her fuller breast and huge bump, falling just past her knees.

“Shut up,” she blushes, pushing herself up on the arm of the chair, Cas’ hand on her back. “It’s too hot to wear anything else. Cas chose it,” she grumbles, rubbing at her stomach.

“I think you look nice,” Cas smiles at her from the sofa.

“You would.” The words are mean but the look says she is entirely in love with the former angel.

*

The day she goes into labor she sends Cas away. She has filed the whole archive into some system not known to any other human on Earth and decides she wants a specific sort of ginger beer that they didn’t have in the bunker. He now realises it was some form of animal instinct, to nest alone. At first, Cas refuses, she’s two days overdue, but she cries (a lot) and he caves in.

Sam leaves her to nap on the sofa, her full body pillow between her legs. He checks on her every now and then, noting how loud her snores were. He cleans and catalogues their weapons until he hears her dropping things in the kitchen. Clumsiness was a normal occurrence but the way she was learning over the worktop panting was not.

“I need to call Cas, don’t I?” he asks.

“No, ages to go. He fusses too much, I just need some rest.” Cas did spend too much time worrying about her, counting baby kicks and scolding her for her diet. He calls Jody, who would be a more calming presence. She puts down an old blanket on a chair in the study and tries to read. He sees her eyes skim the same page, not taking in the information. She stops every few minutes, presses the contraction button on her phone app, takes some shallow breaths, and goes back to her reading.

“You need anything?”

“Nope,” she snaps. You’d barely notice she was in labor, minus the change in breathing pattern and the way her nails grip at the tabletop.

“You sure?” he asks, three contractions later. He can’t concentrate, he’s too focused on counting her contractions, seeing if the pain is worsening for her.

“Stop staring at me, it’s just a false alarm. Had loads of Braxton Hicks over the weeks.” He leans over and grabs her phone, seeing the app on her phone, 40 second contractions every seven minutes.

“Deanna!” he shouts.

“Women have been doing this shit for years,” she growls, “I’m hungry.”

She waddles into the kitchen and stays in there to eat her weird food creation. By the time Sam checks on her, she is throwing up in the sink. He texts Cas to hurry up, lying that his sister was fine but was being very annoying.

“Dee, did you send Cas out to buy a product that doesn’t exist?”

“It does exist,” she murmurs, leaning over the sink “But only in Florida and Hawaii.”

He rubs a hand on her back as she rubs her mouth with the back of her hand. “I know you’re scared, this is a huge thing, but Cas needs to be here.”

“What if something happens? It’ll break him.”

“It’ll break him more if something happens, and he’s not here,” She looks away, knowing he was right. She leans over the sink as a contraction hits her and he rubs her back. “I’m going to call him, okay?” She doesn’t say no, so he takes that as confirmation. He’s glad Cas has pulled over to pick up his phone because as soon as he hears she’s in labor, panic takes over. Sam has to talk him down from a breakdown over the phone, just as Jody turns up. He can’t see Deanna in the kitchen, when he returns with Jody, who has arrived with supplies. She hears the sobbing before he does, Deanna is sat on the kitchen floor, behind the counter, sobbing. He knows that’s her place to hide and drink when times get really bad.

“You doing okay?” Jody says, crouching down. “Have your water just broken?” The floor has a little puddle and he can see the wet patch on her pastel pink dress.

“So much water,” she says, wide-eyed.

“My water broke in my midwife’s face, childbirth is a whole mix of gross bodily fluids. If men had to go through it, humanity would have died by now.”

“Cas needs to be here,” she says, rubbing her eyes.

“Sam’s called him,” she strokes her hair, “He’ll be here soon,” She leans forward and groans, grabbing out for Jody’s hand.

“Shall we get you somewhere more comfortable?” she asks, once Deanna’s contractions ease. She shakes her head.

“I’m fine, ages to go,” she repeats like it’s a mantra.

“I know you’re scared. This is way out your comfort zone. We all are with our first. You’re out of control of your body, and that’s scary. You’re feeling horrible new things in new places. I know Cas isn’t here, but you’re not alone.”

“I’m not ready.”

“Deanna Winchester is prepared for everything, she is the strongest, bravest woman I’ve ever met. You are the best role model my girls could ever have,” She looks up at Jody with a smile on her face. “So Sam is going to help you get changed, have a word about why you’re dressed like you’re in the Mamas and Papas whilst I clean this up.”

“I think we should go to the infirmary,” she says shakily. “Just in case.” Sam feels helpless watching the two women together. He wishes Mom was there, she’d know what to do, know how to reassure his sister. He helps Deanna off the floor and towards her room. She gets there easily but soon has to lean against the dresser and breath through the contraction. He gets over his awkwardness at helping his sister out of the dress and into a pair of yoga pants with a purple sports bra.

It was strange to see his strong, powerful sister become a wreck for the minute of contractions before returning to her normal self. “Goddamn it, why do women do this multiple times?”

“You’re going to make the best mother,” he says. He should have said it months ago really, “You were my mother, my father, my sister, my brother, my best friend. You were pretty much good at all of them.”

“I’d love to get into how fucked up childhoods but the AT&T commercials make me cry, not sure I can deal with a John Winchester talk right now.”

He leans in and hugs her, a difficult feat with her huge, hard stomach between them. “I’m so glad you and Cas worked it out, not sure I could cope with a more of your tension.”

“We worked it out a long time ago,” she smiles, rubbing her belly. She clings onto his shoulders as another contraction hits, she automatically squats and uses his arms for balance. “Fuck that was a rough one.”

“Let’s get you to Jody.” He helps her up into an upright position.

Jody is waiting for them in the infirmary. “How we doing?”

“Fucking terrible. It sucks,” she snorts. “Who put steps in a fucking infirmary?” He helps her onto the bed where she wiggles, trying to get comfortable on the single bed.

“Remember the breathing from the classes.”

“Cas made me take these stupid antenatal classes, he only did it to distract me and shut me up for an hour.” She finally gets comfortable on all fours, a pillow below her belly for additional comfort. He takes a seat next to her, not sure what to do other than mimic breathing techniques for her to follow. She barely notices him there, wrapped up in her labor.

Cas appears, almost tripping on himself as he runs down the stairs. “Deanna!” He runs up to her side, assessing her situation.

“She’s doing good.”

“She’s very strong,” he proudly replies to Jody, sitting at the gap at the top of the bed by her head. “Is this position comfortable for you?”

“It is how she was conceived, she might as well come out this way.” He huffs and rolls his eyes at her response.

“It’s a good position, gravity is on her side. She’s coping well with the contractions, making it look easy actually. Four minutes apart at the moment. Water broke about an hour ago,” Jody informs him.

“You missed the support, but you made it for the main show,” Deanna chuckles. She sits up with a struggle and falls into his arms, kissing him so passionately Sam has to look away. They rub foreheads and kiss until another contraction hits and she buries her head into his shoulder.

She gets back into her position on all fours and Cas climbs off the bed to take off his trench. He crouches down beside the bed, in her eye line. “You want me to get anything? The hospital bag is in the car if you need to go.” He pushes her hair out her face and starts to braid her hair.

“Not getting my Impala dirty,” she groans, rocking her hips from side to side. Sam is still rubbing circular motions on her back, watching the rise and fall of her body.

“Castiel, you got any angel friends you could hook me up with?” Jody jokes. “You have the perfect man, you know that? Better treat him right or he’s mine.”

“Hands off my man,” Deanna scolds. Cas looks at her proudly and kisses her knuckles, trailing kisses down to her wrist. “This kid better be worth it.” She lets out a guttural moan that fills the room.

“You don’t have to be here,” Jody tells him.

“I think she needs my support,” he responds. He would only sit in the kitchen and worry about her, hear those echoes and end up coming back in with a fear in his gut. The only sounds that fill the room is her groans and pants, alongside Cas’ words of encouragement.

“I need to move,” she pants. He helps Cas turn her over so she is sat upright, he also helps him lift her up so she can get her pants off.

“Do you need to push?” Jody asks. The pain of her contractions seems to have worsened judging by her face and the animalistic noises that were leaving her mouth. She leans into Cas’ side and shakes her head in a way that means yes, but that she didn’t want to admit it. “Do what your body is telling you. Follow your body.”

“Pressure!” she shouts, clinging onto his hand so tight he groans in pain as she releases it. She wasn’t getting a break from pains, the contractions constantly washing through her. “Fuck, my back!” Sam is straight to her back, rubbing circles on her lower back. The arms that she is resting her body weight on are trembling, about to give way. Sam sits at the head of the bed, crossed legs with a pillow on his lap and both her hands in his. She leans back against him between contractions, letting his strong arms hold her up. She was strong and animalistic, grunting and panting in front of him. She has a look of pure concentration on her face.

“Push on a contraction,” Jody reminds her. “Little pushes.” It’s one of the most terrifying evenings of his life, watching her sister’s face go red and her body tighten up in pain again and again. She doesn’t scream like women in the movies. She leans over, legs wide, and guides her child out by panting almost silently. She lets go of his hands, with a grunt, and places them between her legs. Cas is sat at the end of the bed holding towels and bloody pads.

“I can feel the head,” she murmurs in wonder. She grunts and grabs onto Cas’ shoulder. “Fuck, fuck, I can’t do this.”

“I can see her when you push,” he replies, hand between her open thighs.

“You’re doing great, mama,” Jody says, taking a step to the side, a cold flannel placed on Deanna’s neck, “Just let nature do its thing.”

“Fuck it burns,” she cries, as she pushes out the head. “Help!” She screams as the head is fully delivered. Cas wipes the child’s face with a towel and when Sam leans over, he can see his niece between Deanna’s thighs. “Check the cord.” Cas does what she says, supporting the head in his hands. With another push, their daughter slides into both of their arms.

“She’s beautiful,” he says.

“I was kicking and screaming for hours, you barely broke a sweat,” Jody praises, removing her rubber gloves. Deanna holds her daughter to her chest, listening to the little splutters she makes against her.

“She’s perfect,” she says in awe, counting her little fingers. “Sammy, look.” He has no words to describe the moment.

*

“I can carry her,” she scolds, rearranging her daughter in her arms.

“I know,” Cas defends. “You should sleep.”

“I’m hungry! You know I pushed a seven-pound human out my vagina.” Joanna is dressed in her little AC/DC onesie, it looks too big for her, she looks too small to be real. Sam makes everyone dinner, relieved that his family are all okay.

“Dee,” Cas scolds.

"Daddy is just salty he's not going to get any for a while."

“Honestly, you made childbirth look easy,” Jody says, enjoying a much-deserved beer. “I nearly punched Sean in the face.”

“Tell that to the ice pack between my legs,” she coos to Joanna, who is fast asleep, oblivious to the conversation around her at the table. “I don’t want to sleep,” she says, kissing Cas’ shoulder “I’m scared all this will be gone when I wake up,” she whispers.

“We’re real,” he whispers back, kissing her forehead. “And we won’t go anywhere.”

**Author's Note:**

> [I wrote a similar fic with a genderswapped Cas!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24863518%5BOther-fic)


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